Advertising and marketing represents a significant ongoing expense for most sellers of products and/or providers of goods and services. Sellers of business related products and/or services are no exception to this rule. Herein sellers of business related goods such as, but not limited to: financial institutions, such as banks, credit card and/or account providers, and other managers/providers of funds and financing; providers of business related software and/or applications; providers of general and/or specialized business products; providers of general and/or specialized business services; and/or any other sellers of business related goods and services are referred to collectively as “sellers of business products”.
In order to most efficiently use their marketing and/or advertising resources, most sellers of business products are particularly interested in identifying and/or contacting/targeting consumers who are also business owners, business managers, consultants, and/or are self-employed. Herein, the term “business owners and/or managers” includes, but is not limited to, business owners, business managers, consultants, work-at-home employees, and/or self-employed parties. Traditionally, sellers of business products were typically made aware of business owners and/or managers through the business itself, i.e., the sellers of business products accessed the business owners and/or managers by contacting the business. In other cases, business owners and/or managers were identified by their maintaining traditional business banking accounts. However, with the emergence of electronic/Internet commerce, numerous small businesses have arisen that are often difficult to identify as businesses. Indeed, it is currently estimated that there are over 22 million small businesses being operated in the United States by small business owners and/or managers that do not identify themselves as small business owners and/or managers, or identify their businesses, to the banks, or other financial institutions, that manage their funds.
Many of these small business owners and/or managers fail, and/or purposely decline, to identify themselves as small business owners and/or managers because they do not consider their small businesses to be large enough to need all the additional services associated with traditional “business banking” accounts. Therefore, they do not wish to pay the additional fees associated with a traditional business banking accounts. Consequently, in many cases, these small business owners and/or managers typically use traditional “consumer” and/or “personal” checking accounts, credit lines, and/or other funding, to operate their small businesses. As a result, many small businesses, and/or small business owners and/or managers are extremely difficult to identify and many traditional methods and/or avenues, for accessing small business owners and/or managers, are often no longer available.
The situation discussed above is not only problematic for the sellers of business products, but the small business owners and/or managers are also deprived of the opportunity to receive special offers, pricing, discounts, and products that would be made available to them if they could be identified.